1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cabinet which is installed on a counter top or refrigerator and used to defrost a relatively small amount of frozen food in an average home and, more particularly, to a defrosting device whose inside arrangement can be varied according to the size of frozen food to be defrosted or other condition.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When a relatively small amount of frozen food is defrosted in an average home, it is common practice to take it out of a frozen food compartment and allow it to stand on a counter top or contact it with running tap water. However, this common practice has the following disadvantages.
(1) When the food is defrosted while still wrapped with a packaging film of coating, a long time is required for defrosting. When the food is defrosted after it is unwrapped, dust and various germs in the air may attach themselves to the food.
(2) In case (1) above, the food is unintentionally often exposed after the optimum defrosting period has elapsed. This can adversely affect the taste of the food. Further, the surface of the food may dry out or change in color, with further deterioration in the quality.
(3) As defrosting progresses, water tends to drip from the food, and moisture in the ambient air can condense on the cooler food surface which increases the quantity of free water. This free water naturally stays in contact with the underside of the food, and therefore the exposed sides and the under side are defrosted at different ratios. In order to avoid this undesirable situation, it is necessary that the free water be frequently removed and that the food be inverted for avoiding uneven defrosting. In this way, optimum defrosting is quite cumbersome at best.
(4) When frozen food is defrosted rapidly, it is unavoidable that the surface regions and the interior regions defrost to different degrees. Hence, consideration should be given to choosing a cooking time to compensate for this difference. Also, in general, rapid defrosting results in a loss in taste.
In order to solve these problems, various defrosting devices have been proposed. However, none of them are satisfactory. The most serious, unsolved problem is that the space arrangement inside known defrosting devices cannot be varied. Specifically, when a large mass of frozen food is defrosted, the mass must be previously separated into into a smaller portion in a cumbersome manner. When a number of small portions of frozen food are defrosted, they must be piled on top of each other. This makes the defrosting difficult.